


Stargazer (about a boy and a rose)

by skyeofskynet



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Role Reversal, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-17
Updated: 2011-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyeofskynet/pseuds/skyeofskynet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty years ago the Doctor landed in a different garden.<br/>There is a story about a boy who had touched the stars and burnt himself. That's Mel's favourite story. That's the story Mel doesn't understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stargazer (about a boy and a rose)

Your eyes, your eyes are full of stars  
See the light burn out and fade away

 

Mel is seven now, so grown up and tall, taller than all the boys in her class. It’s good, really good actually, because every time somebody tries to say something rude about her red hair, she can look down on them like her mum does (it’s really scary when mum does it, but Mel is getting better and better at this).

She’s spending the weekend with her dad. She likes them, those weekends with dad, the Saturday evenings by the river and the Sunday morning pancakes. Dad is cool, he always talks about the stars like he had been there, which makes her dream that someday she, Mel, age seven, will be out there too.

Mum doesn’t like that. Mum is always talking to dad about growing up, which makes no sense, because dad is a grown-up, he’s tall and everything, has a job and a car, and her.

Dad tried to explain it, once.

“It didn’t work out,” he said, his voice suddenly so sad, as always when he talks about mum. “I asked her to come along with us, but she said no. He said it will end that way. That it would come between us, all of it… Maybe I should have stayed, then.”

He is, of course, the Doctor, the same one who'd landed once in the garden of a boy everybody laughed at. That’s Mel’s favourite story, she likes it better than the one with the space whale, and the one with the pirates, too, because it’s the first one, the most important one, the beginning of all the other stories.

She promised her dad once that she would never ever laugh at other people. She even punched Evan in the face, because he did it, he laughed at Stella because she doesn’t have parents at all. Mum was mad. Dad was mad, too, but Mel was proud of herself.

That was almost a week ago, all forgiven now, she thinks. Dad is humming something while he’s making apple pancakes for them. Mel is looking out into the garden through the window. It’s raining today like it’s been raining all week, no river for them this time; then again, rain had never stopped dad before.

“Dad?” she asks. “Are there rainbows in space?”

It’s an important question. She’s big enough to not ask if the Milky Way is really made of milk (it is, in some places).

“I don’t think so, Mel.”

“But it’s raining there too, isn’t it?”

Dad showed her a meteor shower once. He took her away from the city (the cities are star killers), to a field, and drove through the corn really fast (“Don’t tell mum.”). They sat on the roof of the car and watched the stars falling from the sky.

“Make a wish,” said dad, so she did.

“He will come for me too, right?”

Dad is looking at her now, a frying pan in his right hand, and he’s sad again. He’s always sad when she asks about it and she wants to tell him that she will take him with her, because he knows everything about stars. Doctor will be happy to take them both.

“Probably.”

“When?”

“When you’re ready. He has a really big problem with timing, though. Which is really ironic if you look at it that way…”

“Dad.”

Dad is kneeling in front on her now, the apron she made mum buy for him all covered in flour. There is flour on his face too, along with this very serious look.

“The thing is, Mel, the world out there is beautiful, but…”

The story about the rose is the one Mel doesn’t understand. Once upon a time there was a little prince who lived on a planet that was scarcely any bigger than himself. One day he said goodbye to his flower and left.

“The boy was responsible for his rose,” it’s something dad always says.

“The rose was mean to him. You shouldn’t be mean to people, you said it.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter.”

The pancakes are slightly burnt this time.

(You can’t touch the stars and not burn yourself. That’s the other thing dad always says.)

The story is about important things, she thinks, and she really prefers pirates or moons made of honey. She asked her mum once, and mum bought her a book.

“You will understand it someday,” she said, her voice all serious. “Like your dad did.”

“The rose cried, Mel,” said mum like it meant something, and it probably did.

People ask her sometimes why her parents don’t live together anymore. She doesn’t know what she should tell them, if she should. People are talking, too, that her father ran away with a _man_ , that he’s crazy, that mum shouldn’t have married him in the first place.

“Your dad is stupid,” said Evan three days ago and she wanted to punch him again and scream, _my dad isn’t stupid, you’re stupid, my dad was in the stars_ , but she promised not to, so she kicked him instead. She can’t understand how you can even try to like mean people. It’s hard enough to to-le-rate Evan at school.

Perhaps it’s a grown-up thing.

The river is dark, like always is when it rains, and the bridge is slippery, so she’s gripping her dad’s hand very tightly. There is water in their usual spot, and there is water in her wellingtons, but she won’t tell dad, because he will want to take her home and put her under a couple of blankets, and she doesn’t want to go back yet, she wants to wait for the rainbow.

“I’m going to be a superhero,” she announces and dad chuckles.

“I bet you are.”

But she will, she knows it already, it’s something that dad calls spoilers, the things you shouldn’t know, so she pretends she doesn’t. There’s a lot of things she shouldn’t do anyway.

She heard mum screaming at dad once, and she likes to believe that this one isn’t just a story. She likes to believe none of it is, because if the stories are only stories, then Evan is right, and a world in which Evan is right can’t be good.

“You’re turning her into you!”

“Amy, you don’t understand…”

“Oh, don’t even try to—”

“Amy, I’ve met her.”

There was silence and Mel bit her lip.

“I’ve met her. In her future. She’s so beautiful, our little girl.”

And mum cried.

“I will be a superhero with a cool name.” Because you can’t be a superhero named Melanie Williams. It just doesn’t sound right.

The grip on her hand is stronger now.

“Time to go home, Mel.”

“But I want to see—”

“Next time, sweetie.”

The water is splashing in her wellingtons in a funny way. She looks at the sky, full of dark clouds and no stars at all, and suddenly there is a drop of water in her eye. She blinks.

She want to ask dad if he misses the stars, because she misses them a lot after even a week without them, but dad looks at her, smiling, water dripping from his nose.

“Race you to the car?”

Saving universe is all about running. That’s another thing dad always says.

So she runs.

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in English (I'm a Polish native). It kinda happened. Thanks to Idril for betareading.  
> The motto comes from the song "Ghost" by Pendragon.


End file.
